All I want are ships with frikin lasers

You should have been here for early Beta. Lasers were full length beams that reached ACROSS the view screen and were WAY overpowered. Personally I liked the way they looked but it was a bit busy from a viewing standpoint. I still liked it.

On Mass Drivers, I agree that the Durantium based rock throwers are over powered for when you get them. If they had a bit more 'inaccuracy' built into them they would be fine. 

My thought is that is why I put armor on my ships. 

Ok reading the title of this post someone needs to make an animated shark looking ship with a laser attached to its head 

This really boils down to resource frequency.  I guarantee if elyrium wasn't impossible to get, you'd see a ton of beam weapons.  The elyrium laser is no joke.

I just get a few from trade, if I cant find any.  Elurium Defense shield gives +3 military, so quite nice to put by the hyperion buildings.  Of course, can make a planet invasion proof as well.  For offense, I use it support ships.  I like using beams, just because they look cool.  I'm definitely all in for anyone making shark ships  

The Durantium Driver Spam is a bit OP, tried it once, didnt do it again.  Next game, I do need to try to build a Durantium Refinery on new worlds, to see how well that ends up buffing production, while pop is still extremely low.

I swear I saw a shark ship somewhere in one of the posts.  The first thing I thought of was equipping it with lasers. 

That's an interesting point.  There is more elerium available in my maps than yours.  I may rethink some weapons choices.  There isn't an excessive amount of elerium, but with a couple mining techs, I could field some mean beamers in my fleet.  I could at least beef up some of my early all around attack ships.  That would be a big help. 

I end up finding elerium in the big empty spaces on my maps, hidden where there is nothing but nebulae.  That is probably where the map difference is.

Actually, OP, the difference isn't that big. Most levels actually favor Lasers slightly over Mass Drivers, with the only really BIG exception being Graviton Drivers, which briefly become the most powerful weapons in the game. You'll notice this as the level of Mass Drivers that the Drengin rushes to every game, and now you know why. This is significant, because this is where the game caps you off until Age of Ascension. However, at the Age of Ascension, Lasers pull way ahead, with Phasers being slightly better than Quantum Drivers, and Doom Rays being MASSIVELY better than Singularity Drivers.

Also, if you go Lasers, you don't gain anything from the Accuracy bonus tech, so you have no opportunity cost to instead get Miniaturization. Also, while you can double your kinetic rate of fire, this reduces its accuracy greatly. Without the accuracy boost, you're looking at 65% accuracy. This would put Kinetics and Lasers on equal footing mass-to-mass, with Kinetics having the chance to get "critial hits" where all their shots land, but lasers having range and reliability.

I'm a laser boy myself, but mainly because I like how it looks i battle viewer.  Lasers miss too, as do missiles.  The accuracy brings the range and DPM differences together, making a fairly balanced approach to the game.  

Yeah, at the high end Singularity Drivers have much less DPM (taking accuracy into account as well), however you have to kinetic defenses into consideration.  Armor has a terrible defense/mass ratio compared to shields.  Hence, it makes sense on offense that beams have a higher dpm/mass ratio.  IMO its pretty balanced, with the only exception of durantium being such a huge in game resource, and Durantium Drivers pretty much matching the high end singularity drivers.  

 I Have no idea why the devs dont have all resources balanced by DEFAULT.  From an offense and defensive weapons point of view, they pretty much all have the same type of module support abilities.  They all have social building uses as well.  It would make it interesting IMO, as your strategy would GREATLY change based on the resources available. Hence, playing same maps size, same race, same opponents, you would be forced to play differently because of resources.

Real world is not balanced so why balance things too much beyond the elusive fun point.

Balance should be their number one goal.  Then you can tailor it for your owns tastes.  For ultimate re-playability, they should as well have random options for that entire page.

Also by not being totally balanced having to deal with to much or not enough of something helps to increase the fun factor for many.

The quantity thing help make every game unique.

In  other games that try to balance everything no race is really any different then another. Here they seem to be more unique.

It all comes down to what you choose and why depending on the situation.

I guess in a general sense that argument could be valid but generalities aren't always helpful in game design.  If every game is 30 durantium and 3 elyrium did we really improve game play by having the imbalance?  Or did we really just make 2/3 of the special weapon options less viable...

Imbalances can be a form of balance.  Having the balance change by factors such as tech age and resource availability is a way to introduce flavors and complication and consequences.  There is a lot of potential for variability in the weapons systems.  They did work to make it so the weapons were not monotonously equal.  I appreciate that.  There will be further adjustments to both the balance and imbalance. 

As for "every game is 30 durantium....".  Given that there is so much variability in the initial map choices, that cannot be true.  If you consistently pick the same map settings, then there will be a basic shape and feel to the economy associated with that map.  I am not sure how much variability they are going to be able to offer within individual map constraints.  Balancing and changing how things get sprinkled across a space map seems to be a finicky art, especially since they do have to consider the wide range of maps available that could be affected by any one change.  I am certain this will get better, but it may be slow progress so as not to break what they have achieved so far.